Workin' 9 to 5...

From all my postings, it may appear that Josh and I do nothing but go to festas, sunbathe and play with our guinea pigs. In the midst of all this, believe it or not, we do manage to fit in time to do “real” work too. Bird, you asked us what we were doing, and if we thought what we were doing was really making a difference, so I thought I’d post a little “work plan” update.

Although I initially came to Cape Verde to do Youth Development, the most important skill to have with Peace Corps is flexibility. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m working at the local government office and, more specifically, with the NGO Morabi. Morabi is a women's organization in Cape Verde that also provides micro credit to women (and men, if they have a woman to cosign on their loan) to start micro businesses. This can range from animal husbandry to agriculture, to making and selling baked goods and jams, to running a bar or small market. In Porto Novo, we have approximately 40 micro credit clients, most of whom are concentrated in the city.

My job is broken into several related parts. First, I work with existing micro credit clients and offer them "additional" services and trainings; for example, an introduction to marketing concepts or help with writing budgets and teaching smart accounting practices. This can also include making connections between businesses. For example in Cirio, we have a client who is a shoe maker. When I asked him how he sells his shoes, he said it was by word of mouth. He receives orders and then makes the shoes, and then when someone is heading down to the city, or to where the customer lives, they will deliver the shoe. Some ideas I am discussing with this customer is marketing – how do people find out about his product? Would it be possible to make sample shoes and display them in stores in the city? Would he be able to handle the additional orders if he were to receive them? What is his current work capacity? Other things to consider is depreciation of big ticket items – if he has 3 sewing machines, has he factored the cost to replace these when they break into his monthly budget, or does he have a separate “savings” to buy a new one when necessary? If not, this is something I can help him to understand and hopefully to plan for.

The second part of my job involves "recruiting" new micro credit clients. There are several challenges to micro credit in Cape Verde, and one of the main ones is lack of information. So my other task is to educate more people about the benefits of micro credit and micro enterprise. I’m currently designing information sessions to give to different communities about these things. Another challenge is lack of the “entrepreneurial spirit.” In America, we are saturated with the idea that opening our own business is a perfectly viable career choice; in Cape Verde, this can be a foreign concept. Part of my training sessions focus on the WHY’s of opening a small business, the HOW’s, and the WHAT’s, as in what sort of businesses are viable options in Cape Verde and how you can choose one that will work best for you.

The third part of my job is an extension of the second; once we hold information sessions to introduce people to the possibilities of entrepreneurship and micro credit, I want to run small business training courses. This “work plan” continues on to include a small business mentoring program, a summer business camp for girls and finally an after school business club, where girls from the business camp will partner with American youth (possibly through Junior Achievement) and open and run their own small business, using a micro loan from the American partner.

In addition to this, we are now starting work on planning Camp Crioula, a girls summer leadership camp that has been run on our island the past two years. This year we are looking to reach 40 girls, including 10 from the neighboring island. This will hopefully take place the last week in July.

So...yep, we do work around here, but things move slowly and the most important catalyst is language. This in particular is why my work has moved more slowly than others; not only did we move to the northern islands and have to learn a different “way” of speaking Kriolu, but I’m also in the business sector and in my work, if I can’t explain something or understand what someone is saying, it can have a real negative effect on someone else’s life. This is also the main reason that Josh and I want to stay here for an extra year; the later parts of my project, including the business camp and after school program, would be implemented next summer and school year (although there is a possibility of having a winter camp over the break).

I’m sure Josh can better explain what he is doing in his work, but in a nutshell, he’s working on several programming projects, including designing a database for storing tax information, one for helping to monitor water in our concelho, and working with me on a way to streamline the credit process for Morabi. We’re also looking at designing an island wide website with links to each concelho.

Now that we've talked about work, it's probably a good time to mention that we're leaving for training in Praia on Thursday, and then will be on VACATION visiting the islands of Sal and Boa Vista from the 21st to the 29th. Sorry, no blog updates during that period I'm afraid, but I know we'll have TONS of photos to post when we get back! The 23rd is our 2 year wedding anniversary (and Josh's mom's birthday - Happy Birthday!), and we thought what better way to celebrate than sitting on a beach doing NOTHING all day along!

Ti logu,

Dove

Carnivale!

Not even a week since we got back, and I've already got pictures! Wow!

So...not much to say specifically about Carnivale, except it was a TON of fun. Most of you know I went to school in New Orleans and so I've experienced a little bit of Fat Tuesday already. And some of you know how much I disliked Mardi Gras proper in New Orleans - too crowded too many tourists, too many people spilling beer on you etc. But the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras were awesome, just the locals celebrating their favorite holiday.

Carnivale in Cape Verde is like that, the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras. The people that live here far out number the tourists, although quite a few Cape Verdeans who live abroad take this opportunity to come home and visit friends and family. We heard a bit more english than we are used to, but it wasn't overwhelming. Just like you'd expect there were dancers in the streets, music, drumming, and really awesome huge floats. But there weren't a zillion people, so you could move around, you could walk fairly easily to get some food or a drink, and people in general were pretty awesome.

We arrived late on Sunday, but in enough time to have dinner at this fabulous little Italian restaraunt - gnocci in 4 cheese sauce anyone? Plus sangria, which was delicious. Some folks made it out that night but me and Josh were zonked, so we made it an early night.

Monday was a blast - we dressed up in our Burner best and turned lots of heads (who wouldn't in a fluffy rainbow tutu?). Things were mostly happening at night, so we headed for schwarma and pizza and then to the praca to party. After the parades and dancing started to let up, we opted to hit a warehouse party out by the beach bar...and were we glad we did!! Many of you know how much Josh and I loved techno and electronic music at home, especially when we could dance our butts off til dawn, and since we've gotten here we haven't had much of an opportunity to do so (at the discos they mostly play zuke, which is repetative slow dancing and for me, not something I enjoy). So we coughed up the money, enjoyed the open bar (some of us more than others *cough* Josh *cough*) and danced til about 4am. The music was stellar, the vibe was awesome, I got down with a "naughty nun" (oh how I wish we'd had our camera) and it was just a great night over all. Then someone needed help getting home and good samaratin that I am, everyone arrived safely at their respective destinations.

Tuesday was the big day, and the parades started around 2. We were totally exhausted from the night before but made it in time. A big group of us from Santo Antao all dressed like cave people and had a fantastic time dancing in the streets (seriously, every time the drums started, we started dancing, and every time Josh started dancing, everyone stopped and watched us and joined in - it was really cool). The parades stopped around 6 or 7, and we headed home cause we were cold in our rags and loin cloths. We had planned on hitting the Hotel Mindelo for a later party, but instead we crashed. We needed it.

Wednesday was amazing. We hit the beach around 11 and spent the whole day getting fried there. The weather was awesome, there was a great breeze, the chicken at the beach bar was delicious...it completely felt like we were on vacation....that ended too soon :o(

The pics tell the story way better than I can, so without further adu...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doveandjoshua/sets/72157614760589554/

C took a bunch of video clips, so once I put all those together I'll get them on line. Enjoy!